Fatayas are probably the most popular Senegalese snacks. Inspired from Lebanese cuisine, a fataya is essentially deep-fried dough filled with a mix of meat, onion, hot peppers, pepper and tomato sauce. The meet can be beef, chicken, mutton or fish, the latter being called pastel.

Although you can find it on every street, I would not call it fast-food since making fatayas requires lots of ingredients and a lot of steps.

Usually in the evenings a lot of women pop out on the side of the street with their tables, pots of ingredients and charcoal stoves and start making them right there. The finished fatayas are stored in a plastic container and await their customers. You will always receive them in an old piece of newspaper. The cost is around 100 FCFA/piece (~15 E cents).

If you get them from a fast-food they will probably be bigger and more expensive, and they will aso give you an onion and vegetable sauce.